Manchester United fans are experiencing a strange feeling right now. They are immensely looking forward to the Europa League final against Tottenham in Bilbao on May 21, but they know that their team is in a rotten state on the pitch as well as off it, as underlined by Ruben Amorim’s brutally honest remarks after Sunday’s defeat by West Ham.
There are clear parallels with 20 years ago, when United were preparing for the FA Cup final against Arsenal but were in disarray when it came to the controversial takeover by the Glazer family, which had just been completed. Two decades on, and the effects of the American family’s leveraged buyout are still being felt at Old Trafford.
United are in even greater financial dire straits than in 2005. The Glazer takeover sunk a club that had been balancing the books since 1931 into £580 million ($776m) of debt. That figure has since increased £731.5m ($965m), too. The club's debt is a huge factor in Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s swinging cuts, including his decision to make more than 400 employees redundant over the past year. And it is a big reason why United’s spending power has declined and why they are close to breaching the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability limits.
United fans have been protesting about the Glazers ownership since before their bid was launched, and opposition to them has ramped up further since results have declined in the 12 years since Sir Alex Ferguson retired. While the team’s decline can be blamed on many bad recruitment decisions, the Glazers’ running of the club is undoubtedly the biggest underlining factor in their fall.
And the inconvenient truth is that Ferguson himself played a role in the takeover, from angering the club’s previous shareholders due to a dispute over a horse to not trying to stop the deal or even speak out against it. So, 20 years on from the deal which began the downfall of Manchester United, GOAL asks: How much blame should be portioned to Ferguson?
